Article written by Young Voices contributor Nate Hochman in "Townhall":
During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate in Iowa, long-shot
billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer made the case for a tax on
the wealth of the richest Americans,
explaining
that he finds “the income inequality in this country” to be
“unbearable, unjust and unsupportable.” The rest of the politicians on
the stage — almost all millionaires themselves — nodded along in
blissfully unironic agreement.
The issue of income inequality is practically a
raison d’être for candidates like Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders
, but
a similar sentiment regarding the immorality of the nation’s wealth
distribution is often echoed by a wide range of progressive politicians.
This indictment of America’s wealth distribution is relative rather
than absolute. Meaning it’s not just that there is something objectively
wrong with the living conditions of the working class, but rather that
there is something unconscionable about the way that some live
in comparison to
others. For those who subscribe to this view, a particular level of
inequality in a society’s economic distribution is wrong simply because
it is. Subsequently, there’s a certain level of individual wealth that
is inherently immoral. As the
Twitter handle of a senior policy advisor for congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reads, “Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure.”
But exactly how much wealth, relative to the mean, is too much?
And what exactly would a “just” distribution of income look like? These
aren’t just hypothetical questions — they reveal a fundamental defect
in the relativist view of the economy. The anger over the concentration
of wealth at the top of the income distribution relative to the middle
and working classes often stems from the notion that the economy is
static, and that every dollar gained for Bill Gates is a dollar lost for
less wealthy Americans. To view the economy in this way, however, would
be a grave mistake.
Market economies are far from static, and the
accumulation of wealth by the most prosperous individuals does not
amount to a theft of income from the working class. To be sure, some
people become wealthier more quickly than others during periods of
economic growth, but the beauty of the free market lies in its ability
to create value for
everyone. Success in a market economy often
stems from one’s ability to create a product or service that motivates
consenting individuals to willingly part with their economic capital.
Subsequently, many of the most affluent members of our society acquired
their wealth by creating enormous value for others — and not just those
in the top quadrants. It’s no wonder, then, that standards of living
have
continued to improve for Americans in every income bracket, even as the gap between the rich and the poor has widened.
Ironically, this is the exact argument that Senator Sanders made when confronted with the fact that his personal wealth
now situates him
in that oft-denigrated top 1% of the country’s income distribution. How
did Sanders become a millionaire? “I wrote a best-selling book,” he
explained
to the New York Times. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a
millionaire, too.” Of course, this is an inadvertent recitation of the
argument often made by Sanders’ fiercest critics: he created a desirable
product, which he then traded in exchange for money to consenting
individuals in the market. It’s difficult not to be astounded by such an
impressive exercise of cognitive dissonance: the Vermont senator
continues to be unabashedly convinced that the wealth of his fellow
one-percenters is damning evidence of an unjust, unfair system that
needs to be corrected through massive redistributionist policies. But
when it comes to the significance of his own income, he suddenly becomes
uncharacteristically charitable. How odd.
The eccentricities of septuagenarian socialists
notwithstanding, those who are concerned with the lot of the American
working class should center their energies on material prosperity,
economic mobility and wage growth rather than becoming mired in concerns
over relative wealth distribution. There is still real work to be done
in these areas, to be sure, but attempting to punish the successful
rather than expanding opportunity for the least fortunate will likely
exacerbate such issues. Contrary to what many contemporary progressives
seem to believe, punitive wealth redistribution is not the key to a more
prosperous or just America. Instead, policymakers should focus on
increasing the polity’s ability to lead lives of purpose and dignity —
something that’s rarely, if ever, provided by a massive new government
program.
https://townhall.com/columnists/youngvoicesadvocates/2020/01/18/how-wealthy-is-too-wealthy-n2559683
